JP Nadda appointed BJP's working president, Amit Shah to remain party chief

Jagat Prakash Nadda will be the national working president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its parliamentary board decided on Monday.

The party’s highest decision-making body asked the current party president, Amit Shah, to continue at the BJP’s helm until the completion of its membership drive and organisational polls.

Nadda’s elevation indicates that he could succeed Shah once the latter ends his term in December 2019. This is for the first time the BJP has named a working president since it was founded in 1980.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, and Thaawarchand Gehlot attended the parliamentary board meeting. BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Shivraj Singh Chouhan also participated as did party General Secretary (Organisation) Ramlal and Nadda — in his capacity as secretary of the parliamentary board.

Congratulating Nadda, the PM tweeted that he “is a diligent karyakarta (worker) of the party, who has risen through the ranks due to his hard work and organisational skills. Humble and affable, he is widely respected across the BJP family”. The two share a good equation since the time Modi was the party’s in charge for Himachal Pradesh and Nadda a legislator.

The BJP follows the principle of ‘one person, one post’. Now that Shah is the Union home minister, he has decided not to continue as party chief once his term is over, party sources said. Shah, however, will oversee as the BJP’s campaign for the forthcoming Assembly polls in Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra as BJP president. The polls are also due in Jammu & Kashmir.

Indications that 58-year-old Nadda could succeed Shah were there when Modi kept him out of his new government’s council of ministers. Nadda was the Union health minister in the first Modi government.

Former BJP chief and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced the decision of the parliamentary board. “The BJP has won several elections under the leadership of party President Amit Shah. After the PM appointed him the home minister, Amitji himself had said that the responsibility of party president should be given to someone else,” Singh tweeted.

Singh said the parliamentary board of the BJP met on Monday evening and “it has selected J P Nadda as working president”. “He will remain the working president till the BJP’s membership drive and organisational elections are over. Congratulations and best wishes to Naddaji for shouldering this new responsibility,” Singh said.

The parliamentary board of the party did not provide for any ‘working president’ when Shah had taken over from Singh in 2014. The exception, the sources said and Singh’s statement acknowledged, has been made given Shah’s record of delivering successive electoral wins for the party.